


It ends with you and me

by rose_coloured



Series: Flowers and Stardust [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Modern AU, Pining, Pining Idiots, Poetry, mentions of goethe - Freeform, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 17:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14550042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_coloured/pseuds/rose_coloured
Summary: Jehan wasn’t sure, but it sounded much nicer to say, they had a flatmate tradition than to admit that they were sulking and pining week after week. One time Éponine had walked in on Grantaire and him lying on the floor, ‘Love Actually’ playing on the TV (it had been a particularly bad day for both of them) awkwardly holding hands and staring at the ceiling contemplating Enjolras' perfect hair and Courfeyrac's smile.





	It ends with you and me

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was one hell of a disaster to write. This is attempt 13, all the others somehow ended sadly.

There were emotions Jehan could deal with, many he might even say. Hate and anger were easy to control after years of suppressing them and letting them eat him up, jealousy was tricky but something he could overcome it, envy was ugly but manageable.  
Of all feelings, there was one he couldn’t deal with. At least not that that intensity.  
He stumbled the last steps into their living room and let himself fall face forward onto the sofa.  
“I love him so much, it’s going to kill me!”, he said into the cushions. It may have sounded more like some muffled exclamation of horrible pain, but he was sure Grantaire had gotten the idea of what was going on.  
After all, this was kind of a tradition. If doing the same thing every Thursday for about five months could already be considered a tradition. Jehan wasn’t sure, but it sounded much nicer to say, they had a tradition than to admit that they were sulking and pining week after week.

 

Yeah, it was a tradition.

 

One time Éponine had walked in on them lying on the floor, ‘Love Actually’ playing on the TV (it had been a particularly bad day for both of them) awkwardly holding hands and staring at the ceiling.  
Luckily Éponine wasn’t one to ask questions.

 

Since the beginning of the summer semester, they had been doing this. Because Grantaire had managed to somehow share a total of three classes with Enjolras on Thursdays and Courfeyrac had convinced Jehan to volunteer at the local animal shelter with him every Thursday.  
It had been a true recipe for disaster for both of them.  
And today had not been an exception. The afternoon had been nice. Really nice. But Jehan wasn’t sure how long his heart was supposed to see Courfeyrac smile with crinkling eyes, hear him laugh lowly and feel him close when they held hands while walking the dogs. His heart wanted him to scream it from the rooftops, that his feelings had somehow changed at one point.

That he was in love.

But he couldn’t let his heart do it and so Jehan was trapped inside his own head, with words he didn’t even dare to say aloud or write down. He could mumble them into the cushion on his sofa, while Grantaire scratched his scalp and hummed reassuringly.  
Affection.  
Something Courfeyrac gave so easily, if his friends were comfortable with it he hugged them and kissed them all the time.  
Jehan hated it. Not when Courf kissed anybody else, but when he kissed him because they weren’t on the same page at all. Because he was hoping for something that would never happen.  
So he had started to keep his distance and it made him wish constantly for one more kiss.  
Grantaire came over from where he had been sitting at the table, busy with coursework he happily abandoned at the sight of his friend.  
“How bad is it?”, he asked and Jehan felt him leaning down over him even before he felt the small kiss pressed to the top of his head. Right now Jehan really didn’t feel like lifting his head and answer, so he only let out another string of mumbled words.

But Grantaire, bless his soul, understood him perfectly.  
Over the months they had actually learned to read each other even better.  
When Jehan was talking fast, words flowing together, no matter how desperate he seemed, it usually was not that bad. When Grantaire still had enough nerves to wax terrible poetics about Enjolras hair, it was fine. It was the times either of them got weirdly silent like they just burnt out… Those times were the worst.  
Grantaire had once said that Jehan looked like a sepia picture of himself on those days.  
Still there and not completely lost, but like the bright colors were fading more and more until only a few emotions were left.  
Grantaire on the other hand was unreadable on those days, like pages in a book that had been blurred together until they were one grey mess on the page.

With a small tug on his hair, Grantaire signaled Jehan, that he would come back as he got up again and went to the kitchen.

When he came back he did with two ridiculously big mugs filled with hot chocolate in his heads. “Move over.”, was all he said and Jehan got up reluctantly. As soon as Grantaire had sat down Jehan let himself fall back again, lying with his head on Grantaire’s thigh and looking up at the ceiling. It had cracks, many many cracks. One night just after they had moved in he had pointed out, that they should paint them. Nowadays silver and golden lines traced the old cracks, they should paint the newer ones as well.

“So,”, Grantaire put his hand back into Jehan’s hair and took a sip of his hot chocolate. “What is it? Preferably in full sentences but I also take epigrams, haikus, and limericks. Nothing in Latin though, your pronunciation is weird.”  
That prompted at least a small smile on Jehan’s face and he looked at Grantaire with a faked frown, for the first since he had come home.  
“I can’t really tell, it’s just. Feelings. A lot of them and I don’t know how to put them into words. I am just so in love and it feels like an endless high on some days. But on other days I am just…” he huffed.

Grantaire didn’t say much, he knew when to listen. He was amazing at just listening, prompting him silently to go on. If he would interrupt him now, Jehan maybe wouldn’t speak for the rest of the day.  
“I am afraid.”, Jehan went on his voice small.  
“I am afraid of getting hurt or especially hurting him. Maybe this will never work out, and I have to be in love with him forever? Or what…”, he paused not sure how to continue, how to say out loud what he had been thinking for quite a while. What had scared him, when he had looked at Courfeyrac.  
“What if one day I will actually move on? And just not feel like this anymore? Right now I don’t see a way for this to happen, but what if? It one day I look into his eyes and I don’t feel all these things? The butterflies, the nerves, the feeling that I am able to fly. I don’t want to lose this feeling, even if it hurts.”  
Grantaire stayed silent, but his right hand had taken Jehan’s and he had intertwined their fingers.  
Grounding.

“Just, right now I hate love.”, Jehan concluded weakly.  
“Ah no, you don’t. You never could, and I think, no I am absolutely sure, that you will never lose the way Courfeyrac makes you feel, no matter how it will work out. Because this feeling is not only him but also about you. It’s you allowing yourself to love deeply. You allow your uh emotions to flow and that’s the most important thing, as long as you feel anything for him, even if it’s not ‘love’, he will make you feel this way.”  
The words and his affectionate touches were calming. Jehan felt better, after finally saying those words, that had been haunting his mind like ghosts for days.  
“I still hate it!”, he went on squeezing Grantaire’s hand, while he gesticulated wildly with the other one.   
“It hurts so much. The rawest form of emotion, the purest sorrow.”

Grantaire only took a sip of his hot chocolate with a slight smirk. If Jehan was talking poetically again, he was getting better at least.  
“This! This is how Goethe must have felt when he wrote the ‘Werther’. Oh my god, this is it.”, when he threw his hands up, he almost knocked the mug out of Grantaire’s hands.  
“I am going to pull a ‘Werther’. I need a gun, I bet Éponine has one, maybe even a really really old one!”  
“Woah, hold up. Nobody’s going to die here. We will figure something out. I promise you.”, Grantaire answered pressing a kiss to his cheek.  
Jehan grumbled a bit crossly, letting himself get lost in his thoughts again. It was late, how long had they been sitting here? Daylight was gone and the distant sounds of cars down on the street were making him sleepy.

He noticed the shift in Grantaire’s posture but didn’t think much about it, when he spoke up again.  
“I am just so in love with him. Why can’t I just walk up to him ‘I am so in love with you Courfeyrac, it kinda hurts.’”  
The shattering of Grantaire’s mug was followed by three voices cursing.

The first on was Grantaire. “Oh fuck.”  
He was followed by Jehan. “Fuck no.”  
And Courfeyrac. “Shit, I am sorry.”

Something inside Jehan froze when he looked at Courfeyrac at the same time it threatened to burn him alive and all he wanted was to run. But his legs refused to move.  
Grantaire jumped up and hurried to the kitchen to get a towel and a brush, to tidy the mess on their floor. Jehan sat on the sofa staring at the puddle of hot chocolate on the floor.

“I… sorry. I forgot that I had your phone in the pocket of my jacket and I wanted to bring it over and the door wasn’t locked. I… I’m sorry.”, Courfeyrac said, his voice was unsure and Jehan hated it. Courfeyrac sounded never like this.  
“Thanks.”, was all he could get out.  
Grantaire came back, looking between them shortly before he and Jehan cleaned up the mess. Jehan hoped, that Courfeyrac would take this as his cue to leave, but instead, he stayed.  
Grantaire put everything away, leaving the other two with their silence, and when he came back he had put on a jacket and his keys in his hands. “I think I’d better get out of here. You guys probably don’t want me around. I am over at Enjolras’, doing coursework.” Without leaving Jehan time to object he was out the door and the silence was back, crawling into every corner of the room. It somehow even drowned out all the sounds from the outside world, there was nothing.  
It must have been a strange picture, Courf and him silently sitting there.  
“I need air!”, was the first thing that came to Jehan’s mind and he stood up abruptly and went to their small balcony.   
He needed air and the sounds of the city.

A warm breeze welcomed him outside and he leaned against the railing, his eyes trained on the blinking lights of the city beneath him.  
“How many of those constellations do you know?” Courfeyrac had stepped out as well standing next to him. Their shoulders were almost touching, it would be so easy.   
Instead, Jehan looked up at the sky and frowned. 

All he saw were big puffy clouds.

“You can see that it’s cloudy, don’t you?”, he said and Courfeyrac huffed out a laugh.  
“I am aware, but that was actually the first thing I ever said to you.”  
True, it had been on a school trip, about 10 years ago.   
Time flew. 

The stars stayed the same.

“And you know, up until today that day is one of my favorite ones.”, Courfeyrac continued. “It’s up there, with the day you punched that drug dealer. And the one where you knocked out the police officer.”

Jehan snorted. Those days had been amazing. Before he could stop himself he leaned against Courfeyrac.   
“Why are you telling me that?”  
“Because I think you expect an answer and that was the first thing that came to my mind. I think I was going somewhere with it, but I am not sure.” The way he said it, so lightheartedly made Jehan want to fall into his arms and run away forever at the same time.  
“I really don’t expect an answer.”, he responded instead. Because he really didn’t. Uncertainty gave him the possibility of things working out in the end.  
“I know you didn’t want me to hear it, but if you meant it… I don’t want to just leave this. I mean I think that’s the reason why you aren’t that affectionate around me anymore, isn’t it?”  
Jehan swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, and I uhm. I meant it.” What else was there to say? “So about my extensive knowledge about stars?”

“Good. I… I have really no idea, where I wanted to go with that.” They both chuckled softly.   
“I think what I am trying to tell you right now is that you are part of all my favorite moments and…”, he struggled to find the words. Turning his head to look Jehan in the eyes again he took his hand. There really was a different, even in handholding. Where Grantaire’s touches had grounded him, Courfeyrac’s made Jehan felt like he was falling.  
“When I noticed you distancing yourself, I wondered why and uhm why it bothered me that much. Because I accept boundaries, of course, I do but not being able to kiss you all of a sudden felt like I had lost something. Something I don’t ever want to miss. And I have no idea what I feel, but it’s different. That’s all I can say. I don’t have a name for it and maybe never will be, but it’s there.”

Courfeyrac shrugged a bit helplessly, while Jehan tried to process what he had just heard.  
“So what I really wanted to ask you… Can I kiss you?”  
Instead of an answer Jehan grabbed him by his shirt and kissed him. It was short and chaste, like every kiss they had shared before.  
“I really missed that.”, Jehan breathed. His hands were still holding onto the soft fabric of the other man’s shirt.   
Maybe it all would end if he let go.  
“So did I.” Courfeyrac crossed the distance between them this time and the kiss felt different, it meant something different.   
And before Jehan’s mind had caught up with it, he was pressed against the cold wall, his hands buried in Courfeyrac’s curls and Courfeyrac’s lips on his neck.

“That might be my new favorite day.”, Courfeyrac mumbled against his skin.


End file.
